Underground Reality: Vietnam (review)

Unsurprisingly, I find myself drawn to any movie set in Vietnam, outside of war documentaries. Those can stay on the shelf, thankyouverymuch.

While browsing through Netflix (we're 'borrowing' the account while my dear friend, Goolie, is out of the country), I cam across this movie-Underground Reality: Vietnam. The teaser describes the movie as "[d]ocumenting the persecution of Christians in Vietnam, this eye-opening video follows a group of teens who travel through the communist country to visit the underground church."

Okay, first gripe. They do not, in fact, "travel through the...country" but rather, hang out in Saigon/HCMC except for a two-day venture into the central highlands. What they see of Vietnam is miniscule in comparison to the size of the country. But maybe that's just an argument in semantics.

The film features four episodes, rather than chapters. Each introduces you to the teens, again and again (thank goodness for that fast-forward button), then goes on to document on film another portion on their trip.

The teens start out excited, but naive, about what they are going to be doing: breaking the laws of the land for God. There are laws against proselytizing in Vietnam, so bringing in 500 bibles clearly is breaking those rules. They tuck them into numerous suitcases, along with their other things and get through customs without a hitch.

Later, in a what looks more like a drug deal, they load up backpacks with religious tracts and bibles and head off on the back of motorbikes to the HCMC Zoo. There, they covertly meet other religious zealots to pass off the packs and the teens bask in the high of pulling it off.

This creeped me out a little.

In the first episode, they visit the Cu Chi Tunnels near Saigon and see what the Viet soldiers had to deal with. They watched a video that focused on the wins and losses as seen from the Viet side of the American war. Numbers flashed on screen: "2,500,000 Americans and 50,000 Australians fought against the Communists in Vietnam" with war footage playing behind it. The boys said how "uncomfortable" it made them seeing the war from Communist Vietnam's side, how the one now felt such "hate in [his] heart," http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifand seeing the weapons that were used and "the horror of war."

The numbers and war footage come across the screen again: "58,169 Americans and 520 Australians died fighting the Communists in Vietnam."

There's no mention of the 1,1000,000 Vietnamese soldiers killed. Or the millions of the civilians that died (another estimated 1-3 million people). source

Then they took them out to the firing range, where assisted by Vietnamese tour guides, these kids paid more than $30 to fire an automatic at targets, after they've been amped up to despise the Vietnamese. One boy admitted that it was weird. One of the American boys seemed to enjoy the shooting just a tad too much.

While the movie shows some of what I love about Vietnam (the wonderful people, the beautiful countryside, the crazy cities), it's focus on highlighting how terrible the government is takes away from much of the feel-good aspect of the film. It's made by The Voice of the Martyrs and is clearly made to bring to light the persecution of Christians in Vietnam (as well as around the world).

I wouldn't recommend the movie for most since it seems to strive to make Vietnam seem like an overly oppressive place, but also I can't stand that type of religious zeal. One girl is so excited to have smuggled the bibles in and goes on about how "w could be saving thousands of souls" and I can't help but get queasy.

It's an interesting look at one group's dedication to spreading Christianity through whatever means necessary, but the overall feeling of the film is fairly negative. There are some moments that you can't help but smile along with them, thankfully. And the end is a beautiful moment of gratitude when a Vietnamese boy is given a guitar by one of the American boys. The looks on his face is priceless.